


so go slow, i wanna daydream

by oneofthemuses



Category: The Rookie (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Jackson is a Good Friend, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:41:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25852294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneofthemuses/pseuds/oneofthemuses
Summary: Lucy daydreams and then, because sometimes life is good and wonderful and happy, her daydream turns into reality and it's far better than anything she imagined sitting in the shop with sunshine and a cool breeze distracting her from the here and now.
Relationships: Lucy Chen & Jackson West, Tim Bradford/Lucy Chen
Comments: 5
Kudos: 73
Collections: Chenford Week 2020





	so go slow, i wanna daydream

**Author's Note:**

> I'm, like, what? A month late? But this was started during Chenford Week 2020! Title comes from Taxi by EXES (although the song itself did not inspire this fic, strangely). I still don't feel 100% confident in their voices, which is why I was shying away from dialogue, but I figured I might as well put it out there.

Lucy is sitting in the car, waiting on her partner, lost in thought. It’s been a quiet day so far and Lucy isn’t complaining, not by any means, but it’s easy to lose focus and get lost in a daydream. The weather is that perfect mix of sunny with just enough of a breeze to make the warm weather feel gorgeous and not unbearable because there’s not a single cloud in the sky and it’s a fine line. 

If she had to picture the exact kind of day she’d kill to have off, it would be exactly like this, and she would be taking Kojo for a walk and because Tim is Tim and there’s no getting around that, he gets included in her little fantasy of endless blue skies with no clouds. Lucy can’t help but smile, though it’s accompanied by an eye roll, at the idea that she can’t even shake an  _ imaginary  _ Tim. Not that, if she’s being honest, she would really want to whether he was real or fake.

They aren’t rookie and T.O. anymore, no. Now they’re friends, and it’s so much better because Tim still occasionally barks orders at her but he doesn’t hide his smirk when she sasses him or makes faces behind his back. He’s moving over to his new station next week, finally taking that sergeant’s position that he more than deserves, and Lucy isn’t quite sure what she’s going to do when that happens. They rarely ride together anymore but he’s such a mainstay in her life, both personally and professionally, that she can’t quite envision what Mid Wilshire will be like without him there. 

It’s not like he’s going to be  _ so  _ far away or anything, but he’ll make friends at his new station because, gruff and tough aside, Tim picks up friends and strays everywhere he goes whether he means to or not. Between all the new people that he’ll have to cultivate relationships with if he wants to be successful at his new station and shift changes, Lucy knows that his availability to hang out with them, to hit the bar together after shift or help her practice her takedowns, will fall dramatically and it raises something knotty and anxious in her that she can’t quite put a name to.

She’s startled out of her thoughts by Kennett sliding back into the car with two coffees. He hands one to her with a raised eyebrow at her apparent jumpiness and she gives him a wide smile, shaking off the vestiges of her daydreams of days off with a handsome dog and a stupid-handsome man. She accepts the coffee with a thanks and pulls the car back out into traffic, but the images linger in her mind, the happy glow and the content feelings sinking into her bones and leaving her warm and settled, far more effective at perking her up than the hot coffee is.

====

Lucy is back at the station, finishing up some paperwork, when Tim stops by the desk she’s sitting at and taps his hand gently on the tabletop to get her attention. She looks up and the sun is surrounding him in a pool of soft golden light in the late afternoon and the warmth conjured by her earlier fantasies floods back. It feels a little like being wrapped in a fuzzy blanket during a cold night. She thinks Tim would probably scoff at being compared to anything warm and fuzzy but she smiles up at him anyway because Tim being the human equivalent of hygge makes her smile and even if it didn’t, well, Tim earns every smile he gets from her.

“What are you up to after shift, Boot?” 

Lucy stares at him nonplused and he stares back. He cracks before she does because he knows exactly  _ why  _ she’s staring at him like that, too.

“Fine. What are you doing after work, Chen?” He emphasizes Chen like it was such a monumental task to use her name instead of calling her by a no-longer-accurate nickname.

“Maybe the gym, maybe drinks… Maybe nothing. Everything has been quiet today.” She waves her personal phone at him when she says that. “Why? You have a better offer?” He shrugs in response to her question before he elaborates.

“Maybe. It means more time in my company and now that you’re a real cop and not a boot I have to babysit, you might not be so keen on that…” She rolls her eyes this time because he’s trying to antagonize her but he’s not bringing his A game and that’s far more insulting. He covers his snicker with a fake cough. “I’ll hit the gym with you and then we can walk Kojo. It’s perfect weather for it and you’ve got to start pulling your weight with him anyway.” That anxious little pit in her stomach that has been flaring every so often when she thinks of Tim leaving Mid Wilshire eases, just a little, and she manages a soft smile and a nod.

“Shift is over in 10… I’ll meet you in the gym in 20?” He nods and raps his closed fist on the desk again and wanders off without another word.

====

They hit the bag for a bit before Lucy uses Tim as her practice dummy in the takedowns Nyla has been showing her. When it comes to sharpening skills that will keep her safe or making her a better cop, Tim doesn’t hesitate and is endlessly cooperative. He was often a jerk as a TO but he never left Lucy unprepared and that hasn’t changed even if they’re not riding together anymore. Tim doesn’t make it easy like some random mook that fights dirty, but untrained, might. No, Tim fights dirty and with the full knowledge of his years in the military and on the force. Lucy hates it in the moment, but every time she successfully takes him down anyway, she appreciates it for the achievement it is.

She’s on her back, leg wrapped around one of his, one arm wrapped around his neck and the other incapacitating his dominant arm, when he taps out and she relaxes, letting him roll off of her and to his knees. He extends an arm to help her up and she takes it, still panting slightly as the adrenaline wears off.

“You want to go again?” Tim’s not even raspy despite the fact that she was actively trying to choke him out less than a minute ago. She considers the question carefully but they’ve already been in the gym for an hour and she wants to shower and then rush headlong into her fantasy-turned-reality as quickly as she can. It’s early summer in LA which means it’ll be bright out until 9PM, at least, but it’s already 6:30 and she’s been, well, craving this all day. Now that the opportunity is real and at hand, she can’t pretend she’s not eager to see if it lives up to her wildest imaginings.

“No, it’s okay, I’ve gotta see a man about a dog.” He’s the one who rolls his eyes this time but he throws her water bottle to her all the same and trails after her as she heads in the direction of the locker rooms.

====

It is better than she imagined, by a mile.

They pick up Kojo from Tim’s house and he is so, so happy to see Lucy. Tim has trained him well and after nearly 8 months together, she’d expect nothing less, but he still jumps on her as soon as Tim lets him out, excited to see another human who loves him and is willing to give him all the affection he desires and then some.

Tim lives in a suburban area but there’s a trail around a small beachfront about 15 minutes walk and they head there. The breeze is blowing her hair around, her hand is wrapped around Kojo’s leash and her shoulder brushes Tim’s every now and then. With the sun starting to fade as twilight sets in, Lucy isn’t sure her mind could conjure something better than this. 

“I’m heading out next week.” Tim’s words are quiet, but for the first time, Lucy doesn’t feel a vicious swipe of some ambiguous and undefined emotion at the thought. “It’s going to be a weird transition… I’ve been at Mid Wilshire for 12 years.” It looks like he’s doing some mental math. “12.5, fuck. It’s been a long time.” She nods because she knows he’s spent his whole career so far at this station. “So I have to ask you a favour and you can say no, there’s no pressure.” She nods again. There isn’t much she wouldn’t do for him.

“I wasn’t totally kidding about you pulling your weight with Kojo.” 

“Oh. Okay?” She isn’t sure what she was expecting but she’s not sure it was that. She’s not unwilling, but she’s not sure what he means, either. He huffs out a laugh at her confusion.

“Okay, so I was kidding, but I mean, I would appreciate you helping me out with him because my shift changes and taking on the sergeant position means my hours are going to get fucked up in a completely different way now. It would be good for him to have more than just me to rely on. And all of this is your fault, so.” He shrugs like, ‘what’re you going to do? It’s your mess to clean up.’

“What.” She glares at him, not impressed that he’s blaming her for something she’s sure she didn’t do. Mainly because she has no idea what he means. He smirks outright, clearly enjoying the chance to needle her.

“Completely your fault, boot. You’re the reason I have Kojo and you’re the reason I’m taking this sergeant’s position.” Her brow furrows at his words.

“You decided to take the sergeants exam all on your own.” She thinks she catches a moment of hesitation, but if she did, it’s gone before she can call him on it.

“I meant it’s your fault I’m taking  _ this _ position. Had to finish training you or I would’ve been out of there way before.” She rolls her eyes even as she smiles, which, would you look at that, this is exactly like her daydream.

“Okay, Tim, sure. Blame everything on Lucy.” She stops and turns to him so she can poke a finger into his chest. “But you listen, buster, be that as it may, you better be nice to me if you want my help.” They both know she doesn’t mean it and more over, they both know that Tim is as nice as Tim can be to her. 

“We’ll negotiate terms later.” 

She notices it’s not a no.

=====

When she gets home, Jackson is already there, settled on the couch with a glass of wine and what looks like the remains of a shawarma beside him while Property Brothers plays in the background as he looks at his phone.

“Hey Luce. Did you already grab dinner?” She nods and grabs a glass from the cabinet and pours some wine before joining him on the couch. Jackson studies her for a moment and Lucy knows he’s pretty good at reading her so she’s curious as to what he sees. His lips quirk up into a smile. “Have a good night?”

“Yeah, it was… Kind of perfect, actually.” His eyebrows do a little dance like he wants to raise them but doesn’t want her to notice. Which, for the record, she does.

“You sound surprised. Sort of. Confused?”

“I don’t know, it was just a really quiet day, and I kept getting lost in thought, because honestly, it was the perfect weather for a day off. And I’m sitting in the shop imagining my perfect day off and it’s taking Kojo for a walk and if Kojo is there, it’s not like I can magically get rid of Tim…” She trails off, mildly exasperated and struggling to articulate exactly what is confusing her. “And then it came true.” He doesn’t bother to hide the way his eyebrows basically hit his hairline before slowly lowering.

“Okay, wait, back up. You’ve been out with Tim and Kojo since shift ended.” She shrugs instead of answering and Jackson nods. “Huh. Okay, that makes sense now.” It’s her turn to quirk a brow.

“Excuse me?”

“You know, you just came in all relaxed and… Content, I guess. Radiating good energy. It feels like it’s been a while.”

“He asked me to help him out with Kojo when he moves stations. Because his hours and shifts are going to go haywire all over again.” An almost-smug look comes over Jackson’s face and Lucy doesn’t quite understand it, it feels like there’s something just out of her sight, on the periphery of her vision but she’s too tired to strain herself trying to reach for it right now. “What, Jackson?”

“Nothing, nothing… It’s just that, the whole reason Kojo is with Tim is because, what’d you tell me? Tim’s responsible.” She stares at him, not sure what he’s driving at. “C’mon, Luce, it’s Tim. He doesn’t need help managing Kojo’s walks or whatever. He just wants to make sure you don’t leave him just because he’s leaving Mid Wilshire.” Her eyes go wide and she stares at him in dawning comprehension and Jackson laughs a little. “God, Luce, how did you ever get along without me?” He pats her foot and puts off the TV before getting up. “I’m heading to bed.” He gazes at her softly for a minute before he smirks, a little gleeful, a little wicked, and there’s a double meaning there and in the words that accompany his stare but she a little too stunned to parse it out right now. “Sweet dreams.”

It’s the first time that it’s occurred to Lucy that maybe Tim is just as anxious about leaving her as she is. That radiant joy that’s she’s been brushing up against off and on all day settles right into her bones and Lucy’s not sure she’s what the next day might bring, but she’s looking forward to it anyway.


End file.
